Migraine Awareness Month Blogging Challenge #1: Your First for the First

I'm going to try to take part in a little blogging challenge from Health Central's migraine group. Today the challenge is to write about the first time I had a migraine - what it was like, if I knew what it was, what I did, how I felt.

Well, I know I had migraines before this one, but I don't remember knowing they were migraines. But the first time I had one that brought home to me that I was prone to them, and needed to be careful with my body, was this:

This was sometime either in my last year of college or shortly after I graduated.  We wanted to take a day to refrain from eating*, called fasting, and talk to God - and hopefully hear from Him - about our future plans and our desires for life. We drove out to a place about an hour outside of Austin called Prayer Mountain. There were cabins there, a chapel, and then land to wander on. It was in the hill country, so don't picture an actual mountain! Think a lot of cypress and cedar trees and the sanctuary of silence spread on Texas hill country.

Our plan was to be up there till early afternoon, and then head back to Austin, and treat ourselves to a specially good dinner.

The morning went fine. It was hot and the sun was really bright. We each saw some wildlife - a squirrel, a lizard, birds. It's always hard to spend time like this, because our brains want to jump around and not stay focused. So, we all felt a sense of accomplishment when we met back up to head home.

I had a headache, but expected that after missing breakfast and lunch and being outside for several hours. During the drive, the sun started to really bother me, and I was burning up. My neck and shoulders got stiffer and more sore as the miles passed. The headache got stronger, too.

I tried to shade my eyes with my hand and held my body as still as possible. I was also feeling faintly nauseous. I didn't want to ruin the day, so I didn't say much beyond that I had a bad headache. Everyone else was talking and laughing and singing. By the time we got into Austin and to The Brick Oven (really good pizza), I was in bad shape, but still insisted on not making myself a nuisance.

Wanting to indulge, we even ordered an appetizer. I will never forget this appetizer. It was spinach artichoke dip, and we all dug in, starving.

I think pretty quickly I knew I couldn't eat anything else, as the nausea started to overwhelm me. It was obvious that I was sick, so my friends let me be quiet and draw into myself and my little world of pain. When we got home, I threw up. The spinach artichoke dip is pretty horrible coming back up, let me tell you. The rest of the evening was misery for me.

After that experience, I chalked up my severe migraine to two things - missing meals and then eating heavy food afterwards. So, I thought that as long as I avoided those things, I'd be fine.

*i.e. we didn't eat any solid food, but had fruit juice and water to drink.

You can see what other bloggers have written here.
----------------------------------------------------
National Migraine Awareness Month is initiated by the National Headache Foundation. The Blogger's Challenge is initiated by www.FightingHeadacheDisorders.com.